The National Forest Policy Statement (Commonwealth of Australia, 1992) stated that with greater opportunities through public awareness and involvement, it is possible to encourage community appreciation of Ecologically Sustainable Forest Management (ESFM). To enable communities to make a more considered contribution within management planning for State land, information must be suitably delivered to the community about the management of forest resources.
To ensure open space planners gain an understanding of the broad community views a comprehensive communication process must be used to engage interested parties and identify specific issues. This process requires a responsible and coordinated community strategy to engage, collect, and disseminate information. Identification and classification of planning area issues provides the basis for further discussion and subsequent selection and gathering of information and data that has a direct influence on the planning decision. To achieve this effectively a rapid, equitable, extensive, and accountable issue gathering process has been implemented.
This paper lists the issues gathered and the Resource Management Groups’ resolution for each of those issues using a blending of old (community meetings, telephone, petition) and new technologies (internet, email) as part of the data collection process.